1. Does the mention of you stir up hearts,
And disturb beds and pillows?

2. For in your stillness you ride the winds,
Expelling all gentle breezes.

3. Your strength endures though nights may fade,
Stirring the pot of mischief tirelessly.

4. You spent your life owning no peace,
With no sign of turning from your ways.

5. You made your soul’s lot to always roam,
While death has no portion in it.

6. Blessed is the resolute man who stands firm
When trials come and does not waver.

7. Not all defenders, though lofty their zeal,
Remain steadfast amidst war and tribulation.

8. When troubles narrow in, they recoil,
Seeking any spacious refuge.

9. They lean with the winds and if ends
Lead them astray, they bend south.

10. In whom can the commoners trust when
Disguised brokers of harm assemble?

11. Who will protect the lands when
The days of fate assail them harshly?

12. Will the healer of the Nile find a cure?
Will any physician succeed you?

13. Have you not seen how every predictor missed,
Except the able diviner?

14. The wounded nation collapsed and you were
A leg bracing the agreeable wound.

15. When the ignorant rule, glory abandons
The doctors of realms and peoples.

16. The days of incapable successors came,
Leaving Egypt only lamenting and weeping.

17. Do you watch the oft-warned calamity of the nation,
And hear the woeful cry of the populace?

18. If Egypt's pillars shake, it is but
The throbbing of your heart and fervor.

19. And if winds blow fire through it,
That is the heat of melting passion.

20. Enough! Are you not still a brother of worries
As was your custom before departure?

21. You carried the agony of longing while lying
In death's valley, towards the fertile valley.

22. The martyrs passed with no successor,
So you were their successor.

23. Blessed is the face of the One who gave you a face
That illuminates the sides of the momentous tomb!

24. The nymphs and youths long
For the bliss and fragrance in it.

25. You eschewed baseness in life
And guarded against sin and shame.

26. His majesty shows you the perfumed sanctuary
And the wondrous, elegant Holy Book.

27. Orator of the two nations, relieve my weariness -
You left the two nations without an orator!

28. Rouse the heedless and say: My country,
I called you by your Lord's name, so answer!

29. My country, how do you fare on the meadows,
And what have you tasted of misfortune?

30. My country, did you honor your pledge after me,
Or grow content with false hopes?

31. My country, did you follow my path
And refuse crooked roads?

32. I see angry factions and parties
Who rebel against God and the wrathful nation.

33. I see spoils falling into grasping hands
Whose arrows are whetted by the despoiler.

34. I see a populace led to demise,
Going willingly into fettered servitude.

35. I disown the Egyptians if they persist
Upon such sins and crimes.

36. Imam of the guided, shine down upon us
From the light veiled in the unseen!

37. Do you not see that darkness prevails
In this perilous and dreadful situation?

38. You left the matter confused so it came
To have numerous paths and different creeds.

39. Truth became a religion for some peoples
So each misguided heretic altered it.

40. We are unclear, so show us our rites -
We scholars are anxious and in doubt!

41. They took the laws as saddled mounts
With long necks, for riding.

42. The distant enemy attacks fiercely
Throwing its rider into near ruin.

43. The people's shepherds were obeyed so they left
The people in a barren valley.

44. They practice there all manner of evil,
Swiftly binding and lighting the flames of discord.

45. Savagery runs wild with a cutting blade
Wet with the blood of the slain.

46. Never did I see people ruled by such chaos
And seized by claws and fangs.

47. Their sorcerer has blinded sights
And passions have strayed into hearts.

48. Neither good advice nor honest speech
Can now be distinguished from fraud.

49. Is this the Age of Ignorance I see
Or government by the unwise?

50. The creed of the Age of Ignorance
Was closer to Islam than it is.

51. May God rest you from every distress
That hovers with wings spread.

52. Can the sorrowful rejoice unless
The hand of fate casts them down?

53. Alas for the fine hopes
That I stirred under pleasant bowers!

54. We planted them lush and blooming
Yet barren Death spoiled them all.

55. They withered and were to me and all freemen
The last of life's fresh joys.

56. I watch for the hoped-for good fortune
Yet dread what befell the tribe of ‘Utbah.

57. My country, I gave you my youth
And manhood did not curb my zeal.

58. For you I live free for as long as I draw breath
And in you I die a noble death.

59. I wrong you if I accept the disloyalty of a despot
Other than you or tolerate the harm of a loved one.

60. A fighter's honor is to withhold
Punishment and reward.

61. What value is there in the writer, however lofty,
Who is arrogant and lacks integrity?

62. I am done with verse the day I sell
Its generosity for a mean price!

63. Woe to the picky critics
Like fiery arrows.

64. I cast them at the sleepers but they returned
Frightening me, quivering with complaint.

65. They pass by the people, frustrating them,
With the sighs of the anguished.

66. I roused the two valleys but they did not wake -
Such is the setback of the compelling warning!